BENGALURU: Blackstone is investing $250 million to acquire a majority stake in Bengaluru-based online digital skilling platform Simplilearn. This marks the former’s first PE investment in Asia's and India's consumer tech space, sources told TOI.
The Blackstone funding values Simplilearn at $400 million. India's edtech space is seeing a lot of funding and M&As, with the pandemic accelerating the need for online education delivery, and the need for a variety of digital skills and certifications.
Blackstone is buying out Simplilearn’s investors Kalaari, Helion and Mayfield Fund that had invested $28 million. They are said to be exiting with returns 6 to 15 times higher. When TOI contacted Blackstone and Simplilearn on the investment, they said they have no comments to offer.
Blackstone, which has $112 billion in corporate PE assets under management (AUM), has $50 billion of AUM in India so far, including in IT firm Mphasis and Piramal Glass. It is also an investor in edtech player Aakash Educational Services, which was recently acquired by Byju’s for nearly $1 billion. Blackstone has added edtech firms to its global portfolio, including Ascend Learning, which provides software and solutions for vocational education, Ellucian, a software provider to global universities, and Articulate, a SaaS platform for corporate training.
Sources told TOI that Simplilearn would use the new funds to expand into the US and Europe and form partnerships with global universities. This would include doubling employee strength to 3,000, from the current 1,500, over the next 12-18 months.Sources told TOI that the company will also buy back employee stock options that would benefit nearly 100 employees.
Simplilearn was started by entrepreneur Krishna Kumar in 2009 as a blog to share information and tips on project management for aspirants. Today, the platform offers more than 100 programmes to help early to mid-career professionals acquire skills across technology, data science, AI & machine learning, digital marketing, cybersecurity, and project management. Simplilearn offers courses in partnership with top global universities like MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, Caltech CTME, Purdue Online, and IIT Kanpur, and companies such as IBM, Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon.
Simplilearn has two lakh paid users and its free learning platform SkillUp aims to onboard five million users by 2023. The SkillUp platform offers learners access to over 1,000 hours of learning and tech skilling programmes that cover over 600 in-demand skills.
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